


White Room

by Sophia_Bee



Series: X-men Canon Compliant Fics [1]
Category: X-Men: Days of Future Past (2014) - Fandom, X-Men: First Class (2011) - Fandom
Genre: Angst, Canon Compliant, Just a little POV Charles, M/M, One Shot, POV Erik
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-09-28
Updated: 2014-09-28
Packaged: 2018-02-19 02:07:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,304
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2370488
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sophia_Bee/pseuds/Sophia_Bee
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Erik is in his prison and there's only one person in the world who can reach out to him, but he never does.</p>
            </blockquote>





	White Room

Day blurs into night blurs into day again, and after a while he doesn’t know which is which anymore. All he knows is there is nothing he could do but sit and stare at the whiteness around him until it seems to pulsate and move with every twitch of his eye. 

You are not alone.

In the camps, in the lab, he’d been able to make marks, to scratch almost indelible lines into the mortar crumbing in between the bricks. There had been daylight and the terror of night, there had been the smell, the stench that you soon forgot but every once in a while it would waft over you, stronger, and you’d remember why the smoke rose from the chimneys. Yet somehow this was worse. This was nothing. 

You are not alone. 

Such a lie. A tale told to sway him away from his revenge. When it came down to it, he was more alone than ever. Fuck you Charles Xavier. 

“FUCK YOU!” 

His voice echoes. The guards will come in soon with their leather cuffs and syringes that make him sleep. Erik throws himself against the shiny white walls, feeling the way his body crunches against their smooth hardness, again and again and again, liking the way the pain feels. There is blood, bright red smeared on white, and the men with their stern faces and guns are holding him down, a needle jammed into his thigh, some more of the medication that keeps him feeling soft and fuzzy-headed. 

He dreams of metal. He always does after the medication: the way it felt, the way it sings to him. He wakes with his hand reaching out, strong, only a slight tremor now, wanting to feel it again, calling it to him. 

He waits for the metal and HIS voice. The two things he missed the most. The metal that causes his whole body to vibrate. The voice that would whisper his name in the same way he’s whispered it so many times before.

Erik

He wants to badly to hear him again, to have him say that he is not abandoned, not trapped deep beneath the earth with no way to escape. The voice that will tell him that he had not lost everything that day on the beach, that there is some shred of hope that there are some things in life that are unbreakable. Erik needs something in his life to be unbreakable. 

Only silence greets him. 

“Where are you, goddammit, where are you???” 

Erik sometimes wake screaming, asking a question that’s never answered, and those are the only times he lets a tear roll from his eye and down his cheek.

He remembers. He doesn’t want to but he does. The brush of lips against his neck. Hands on either side of his face. Every touch heavy with promises.

I know everything about you. 

Stay with me.

He can’t stop remembering the way those blue eyes stared into his, and that was the moment when Erik found something he almost cared more about than ripping out the heart of the man who had tortured him, stolen his youth, killed his mother. Charles. So intelligent and aloof and sincere to the point that it almost hurt Erik to look at him. Charles. So much of everything. 

You are not alone. 

“I loved you.” Erik whispers into the unbearably bright room. 

It had been Charles who had given Erik permission to set aside his anger. Charles who told him there was more to life than revenge. Because he loved him. Or maybe because he needed him. Love and need have a way of blending together sometimes. He needed Erik, needed his powers. Still…

It had been Charles who would not save himself, holding Shaw still as Erik drove a coin through his head, with the professor feeling every last bit of pain Erik inflicted on his former tormentor.Charled who knows whatErik needs. Or he had. He doesn’t seem to know now. 

You are not alone.

But he is. He became Magneto and now one of the most powerful mutants in the world sits alone in this bright white room with neither day nor night and there is one single person in the entire world who could reach him. Once single person who said that he loves him. It wouldn’t be much to push his mind down to these depths, to echo his voice in Erik’s head, to murmur in his ear, to remember with him those warm summer nights when they’d had too much scotch and played too much chess and how Charles would stroke Erik’s hair almost absently as they sat too close together watching the sunrise. To take away some of this pain. 

He waits. The voice never comes. 

oOo  
two years prior

“There is just something about you…”

The way Erik’s brow furrows tells Charles he’s spoken out loud when he’d never intended to. It’s one of those late nights at the mansion, everyone tucked into bed after a hard day of training, he and Erik sitting at the hewn, worn kitchen table that has seen hundreds of years of use by various kitchen staff, the surface splotched with stains from meals gone by. They’ve been playing chess in the study, each determined to show the other no mercy, the best of three becoming the best of five then the best of nine as the wood in the fireplace burned down to embers and the wind buffeted against the thin warped glass. 

Charles likes these nights. When he was a child he would lie in bed and pretend that it wasn’t rural New York outside but the English moors that the wind whipped across, that he was a crippled boy trapped in a gothic novel, and it wasn’t far from the truth that he was crippled. It just wasn’t his body, it was his mind. He thought it was somehow broken. 

“What is it about me?” 

Erik’s voice has a timbre to it, a rich hum, and sometimes Charles thinks he could close his eyes and just listen to it wash over him. He’s not sure if it’s just his voice or part of the whole experience of Erik Lehnsherr that he’s come to expect. Charles has been staring across the kitchen, or into the hot toddy steaming on the table, anywhere except at the face of the man sitting across from him, but how he raises his eyes to see a quizzical look directed at him, the brow still furrowed.

“I shouldn’t have spoken out loud,” Charles murmurs, eyes now locked with Erik’s. “It’s not really that…”

His voice fades away. 

It’s not really that important. Except it is.

It took a long time for Charles to realize he wasn’t broken. It took a long time for him to figure out how to defend himself against the onslaught of the people around him. He had become careful, controlled, precise. The words that came out of his mouth were calculated, thought out, careful, which is why he’s surprised to find himself in this position, having actually blurted something out. Erik was truly different. He broke down Charles’ defenses in a way that was entirely disarming and unexpected.

He hadn’t noticed it right away. After all, the way they met wasn’t like two people running into each other at a lecture or drinking pints at a bar. Erik had been wide open and raw as Charles held him in his arms, told him that he was no longer alone. So raw that it almost hurt like the early days when he couldn’t organize the thoughts coming his direction. It was later, at the CIA complex, that he’d noticed it. When Charles was around Erik everything was calm. The voices, the emotions that always buzzed in the background, a sort of psychic noise that pushed around his edges were suddenly smooth, like ripples across a pond on a late summer day. It was almost like a mental sigh, and Charles felt his body actually relax and his mind let go and one thought bubbled to the surface, slowly until it broke through.

I could sink into you.

He didn’t know why Erik Lehnsherr did this to him. Maybe it was his discipline. His thoughts were some of the most orderly and controlled Charles had come up against, even that day in the waters off Miami. Even as his rage drove him to almost kill himself, it was disciplined. He would come to understand later that discipline was what held the man together. Discipline that allowed him to roam the globe, hunting down the people who had killed his people. Discipline that allowed him to get up in the morning and appear like any other person despite the deep sorrow that he carried with him. 

Maybe it was his discipline. Or maybe they just happened to fit each other, two pieces sliding together to create a whole. 

Contrast the discipline of Erik Lehnsherr with the chaos that nipped at the edges of Charles conscience. Charles Xavier might seem in control, but no one knew how close to the edge he always lived, how easy it would be to let everything come flooding back in. His serenity disguised his rage as much as Erik’s rage hid unexpected serenity. When he discovered that this man could bring a calm that he’d never known, or at least could not remember from before his powers manifested themselves, he could not help but wonder what that something was that made Erik different. 

“I’m sorry,” Charles stammers, wishing Erik would stop looking at him that way, wishing the words have never come out of his mouth, wishing that he didn’t want this man. 

Dammit. 

Their eyes are still locked, blue and steel gray, unmoving, strong, unforgiving and Charles can see a muscle twitching in Erik’s jaw. He’s not going to be able to leave this unanswered, but Charles isn’t sure if Erik will like what the answer is. 

It’s not like he’s never wanted another man. That warm curl of desire flicker through his belly at the turn of a strong jawline or the curve of a bicep wasn’t a surprise. It was the suddenness of it. Maybe it was the way they met, the sudden shock of Erik’s mind jolting him more than the cold of the water, and Charles was unable to stop himself from taking on all of those intense feelings. He still isn’t convinced that the ache for Erik that never seemed to cease wasn’t just a turn of circumstance and if it had been the lovely McTaggart he’d pulled from the water he might have had the same reaction. But probably not. Moira was not Erik and Erik isn’t just anyone. It isn’t every day you meet someone who seems to fit into every part of you like Erik does for Charles, and sometimes he can’t help but feel some strange destiny is at work. 

“I want to know,” Erik says, his voice almost a whisper, and Charles feels that strange mixture of peace and desire roll over him again, so strong that he almost closes his eyes with the force of it. “Because, Charles Xavier, you are a mystery to me, an enigma that I cannot understand, making you the only person who can explain to me why you…”

Now it’s Erik’s turn to trail off, and Charles can feel that he’s holding back words he’s not entirely sure he wants to say, something unreadable flickering across his face. It would be so easy to just peel him open like a tin can, open up his psyche, figure out what is going on in that disciplined German mind, but part of Charles’ control is that he doesn’t do that unless it’s entirely required. Everyone deserves safety around him and that’s how he offers it. He keeps his walls up, only allowing the big emotions to wash over him, never looking at the details. 

Erik looks away and Charles glimpses a look of almost pain on his face. 

“I am stupid,” Erik mutters to himself as he runs a hand through his short hair. “to think…to think this could be possible...to think that you could...stupid…” 

A wave of longing and remorse, and something else, maybe love, rolls from Erik hitting Charles, and all of his practiced protections can’t stop the feelings from the man sitting across from him. That’s the moment Charles knows that he is no longer alone either. Erik has dove into the stormy seas of his mind and rescued him just like Charles did for Erik. He has calmed the waters of the world that surround the psychic, that push inward at all times, threatening to collapse. Charles own words come back to him. 

You are not alone.

He stands up from the chair, pushing it aside and walks to stand next to where Erik is sitting, his head in his hands, refusing to look up at Charles. Charles puts out a hand and touches Erik lightly on the shoulder, wincing when the other man flinches. He kneels down on the cold stone kitchen floor next to the chair, pulling Erik’s hands away from his face.

“Look at me,” Charles murmurs. 

Erik does as commanded, his eyes looking down into Charles upturned face and there are traces of tears in the corners, poised to fall. 

“This is entirely possible.”

And with those words Charles bends down, places his lips on Erik’s mouth and kisses him. 

oOo

Erik cannot remember what it was like to be loved. If you asked him he would tell you he loved his mother and he knew that was the truth, but if he was honest he would add that he could not remember what that felt like. Love hadn’t been part of his life since the day Shaw sent a bullet into her brain. When all you wanted was revenge, there was nowhere for love to exist. The love of a mother for her son. The love he might feel for another person. It didn’t exist for him. 

It’s not like he hasn’t known sex, the thing that could be part of love. He’s all too familiar with the furtive glances across darkened bars, chance encounters in dark alleyways, all the places men go to fuck each other and not be seen. He’s accepted that his twisted proclivities come with the territory of his twisted mind, that he needs release, to feel good, now and then. He was never meant for wife and family and a picket fence in the suburbs anyway. Not Erik Lehnsherr. He was meant to hunt and kill, then hunt and kill again. Relationships aren’t part of his world.

He would not remember how his mother’s love felt. Not for a few more months, when Charles reaches into his mind and takes him back to a night when he and his mother were hiding in Poland and she was lighting the Hanukkah candles as he looked on, and he is overcome with what it felt to just be a boy, something he hasn’t felt for what seems his entire life. He would raise his face to Charles’, a tear streaking down his cheek, and Charles would reach out a hand and wipe away that tear, remarking something about not ever imagining he’d see Erik Lehnsherr cry. But he would feel love before that day, and it would destroy him.

When Charles tells Erik to look at him, to open his eyes and allow the other man’s gaze to meet his, Erik cannot do it at first. He cannot turn his head because something inside him has started to hurt, a deep aching pain that clenches so tightly he feels he can’t even take a breath. He keeps his head in his hands until he feels Charles’ hands on his arms, pulling his hands away. 

“Look at me. Please”

I can’t, Erik thinks, because for the first time since he can remember the rage is being pushed to the sides, the darkness is slipping away from him, and if he doesn’t have the rage and the darkness, what does he have left? Revenge has been his purpose, waking him each morning, getting him out of bed. If he does not wake and shave, then pull out his gun and clean it, if he doesn’t pull out the list of people he’s planning to kill, if he doesn’t picture Shaw and what he’s planning to do to him when he finds him, what does he have left? 

Look at me.

Is it Charles in his mind, or is it just the echo of the words spoken into the stillness of midnight? It feels like an eternity, but it’s only been seconds, when Erik allows the lids of his eyes to lift, finds himself staring into Charles’ eyes, his face so close, his lips so very close, and at that moment Erik knows. He knows…

Love.

It comes crashing across him like a gale force wind, and if Charles wasn’t there holding his wrists in his hands, leaning forward, so close…

“Oh, god,” Erik groans softly just as Charles lips meet his. 

It’s not like he hasn’t wanted the slight man with unruly, floppy hair who is always so careful in the way he talks, the way he moves. It’s not like Erik hasn’t wondered what it would be like to kiss him, to run his fingers through his hair, but it hasn’t felt different than those other men in the darkened bars and bathhouses. Lust isn’t something he’s unaware of, but love. How can this be love? 

Isn’t it supposed to take time, sharing stories, walking through the park hand in hand, although it’s laughable that he would ever have the luxury of something as banal as that. Backroom encounters and a lifetime with another person are worlds apart for people like him. Love wasn’t something people like him were allowed to have. Everything he knows to be true feels like it’s shattering into a million pieces. 

Charles lips move against his, he lets go of Erik’s wrists and wrapping an arm around his back, pulling him closer, down towards him. Then he pulls away, one hand coming up to press on Erik’s chest, pushing at him, breaking the kiss, and the two men’s foreheads touch, both of them breathing hard. 

“Good god, Erik,” Charles pants. “That...you are…” he is breathing hard, the words coming out in spurts, “breathtaking.” 

“Is it possible?” it’s Erik’s turn to speak out loud when he doesn’t mean to. He can’t finish his thought. Is it possible that he could love someone like this, like Charles. Is this really happening? 

Charles wwwswsiy smiles, a hand coming up to trace Erik’s cheek, “so very possible.”

oOo

  
Charles had lied that day. Erik knew that now, because he was alone and if he had been truly loved, Erik would not be alone. Instead all he has are his own thoughts for company, his memories, and sometimes he wished there were a way those could be erased until he was as blank as the white walls that surrounded him, back to being nothing, like in the camps, when he was a number, an experiment subject, but never Erik Lehnsherr. Never himself. He’d only felt himself with Charles and now that was gone.

They had hurt each other. Deeply and in the way that only two people in love can drive the knife in deep enough to gut each other. They had taken from each other. Erik had taken Charles legs, his hand deflecting the bullet that was meant for him into Charles’ spinal cord, severing the connections that allowed movement and feeling, and severing the ties that held their hearts together at the same time. Then he took even more. He twisted the knife. He took her. Raven. 

Charles had taken as well, but what he took was himself. 

It seemed no amount of suffering on the part of anyone would move the telepath to help. Charles Xavier, the patron saint of the mutants was absent when they were being captured, tortured and killed in the name of the kind of world Magneto was determined to prevent from becoming a reality. Peace was never an option, but the alternative Charles offered turned out not to be peace but just giving up. Where was the decent world for everyone he had espoused in so many late night chats in front of the fireplace study? Without Charles all that seemed to be left was endless destruction and Erik sometimes wondered why his absence was felt so keenly. It was as if he was missing a piece of himself and as if the world missed him. Somewhere along this journey Charles had held serenity and without it the only thing left was rage. Sometimes Erik felt that the rage might swallow him whole.

He had tried to get that piece back once. Tried to feel him. Before the white room but after the beach, in that brief period of time Erik had come to think of purgatory, stuck between heaven and hell. Or maybe just stuck between two levels of hell, not knowing which way was going to hurt him less.

It was a dark night with the wind whipping down the cement canyons of New York City, causing the people walking along her sidewalks to turn up their collars against the cold. It wasn’t much different than that other night when he and Charles had sat in the kitchen at the mansion and the memory ached in his chest until it was a sharp, stabbing pain. 

Erik was sitting in a dingy motel room, watching cockroaches climb the walls in the darkness that was lit only by the occasional flicker of a dying neon light above the Chinese restaurant across the street, listening to the wind, missing...missing him so much it hurt. Mystique was asleep on the other sagging bed that occupied the room and Erik had heard her cry herself to sleep yet again and not for the first time since Cuba he wondered what he had done. And maybe...maybe….

He knew what it meant to take off the helmet. This was before Trask found Frost and tortured her for her secrets, and she had made it clear that she distrusted Magneto. If she noticed he was open to control, he would be vulnerable. But he wanted to dull the ache and he missed him, and maybe...maybe….

Maybe one small touch of his mind would soothe all the pain. Not forever, but for a minute, and Erik ached to feel the sense of peace Charles always seemed to bring. Maybe loving him meant something. For the first time, but not the last, Erik regretted that he’d never understood how to place anything above revenge and his ideals. 

He took off his helmet that night, as the wind blew outside and he felt tears wet his cheeks. He pushed his mind out and asked for what he did not think he deserved. 

_Please. Charles. Forgive me._

He sat on that bed, still, as if movement might somehow dampen what’s in his mind, that even the tiniest shift in position might make him harder for Charles to hear across the distance that separated them. He sat, waiting, and the only thing he heard was silence. It had been a lie. Those words as Charles had pulled him from the water, the ones he wanted to be true more than anything else. If Erik Lehnsherr was anything in the world, he was entirely alone. He always had been and it had been fools folly to allow himself to believe anything other than that. Utter stupidity. 

The helmet had gone back on and Magneto had returned and Erik Lehnsherr pushed aside. His hurt and sadness was replaced it with the old familiar comforts of anger and destruction. Until the day the bullet curved and ended up burying itself in the back of the head of the president, his brains flying across the back of the car he was riding in and Erik officially became an enemy of the state.

Not that he wasn’t already. 

Now he sits in the room. Day blending to night back to day again until he doesn’t know where anything ends or begins. He meditates, legs crossed, arms floating out to his sides. He tries to create his own serenity, but it always eludes him. He tries not to dream, but that always eludes him too. He thinks about what he would say to Xavier if they were face to face.

He would call him a coward.

He would tell him he left people - their people - to die. Not just to die. To be tortured, experimented on, hurt, to die in pain, alone. Not unlike Shaw had tried to do to Erik as a child, and once, in the middle of the night as Charles had traced patterns across Erik’s bare chest, placing kisses on the trails his fingers left, he had whispered that he wished more than anything he could have spared Erik all of that. Now he doesn’t care to spare even the most innocent.

He would tell Professor Charles Xavier that the leader of mutant kind can’t just want to save one person from that fate. He must try to save everyone, and he had failed.

He would tell him he had lied. To him, to everyone, offering up hope of peace in a world that give back only hatred. 

He would never tell him that he calls out his name in his sleep. 

He would never tell him that he spends his days waiting to hear Charles’ voice whispering his name. 

Erik can barely admit that to himself.


End file.
